The Leader - September 2007 - (Page 53) toda y’s techNo lo G y: the to o ls are re ady, are yo u? ful – even if they aren’t easily quantified up front. there’s really no excuse for waiting any longer… helpING your orGaNIzatIoN become ready, WIllING aNd able The opportunity continuum above can help quantify what you should be going after. It can help define priorities and identify where the biggest benefits are going to be. But what to do first? Regardless of the technology change you embark upon, there are a number of foundational activities that you should do now to prepare yourself for a sound technology strategy. inventory your current processes. As a first step in defining a technology strategy and approach, you will first need to inventory your current processes. Once complete, you will then need to determine which of these will be candidates for automation and which are not. In addition, you will need to establish a baseline of how much process redesign is needed as the last thing you will want to do is to automate a series of “broken” and outdated processes that do not reflect your business model. inventory your current systems and tools. Do a quick listing of all the software applications in use today throughout your organization. Include those “shadow systems” (Excel spreadsheets and Access databases) that people keep in their desks if they tend to be key sources of important information. Collect basic information about each system – name, package vs. custom, who uses it, how often, what it’s used for, how old a version of the software, and who fixes it when it breaks. inventory your reports. Also do a listing of the top 25 reports your organization uses on a regular basis that it could not possibly live without. Determine how they are created (through an application or manually), who is responsible for creating them, who the primary audience is, and how often the format of the report needs to change to accommodate new needs for information. figure out the sources of your most critical data. Where is that ultimate source of all your locations around the globe? Who keeps the most credible set of occupancy data? Where do you get total cost of occupancy? It’s important to have an understanding of where these critical sets of data reside and who manages them. Are they coming straight out of your system? Are they created out of a set of several reports that need to be consolidated, rationalized and summarized? Or are they being pulled together on the fly every time they’re needed? get to know your it people better. Learn more about the company’s overall enterprise IT strategy. It is imperative to understand what that strategy is and where the company is headed with technology overall. It’s also critical to be a partner with your IT folks. They can be either a great help or a great hindrance when you want to make a change. Needless to say, getting IT’s support in your decision will only make the technology decision a successful one… the technology tools are ready. now, you can be, too… about the authors George Bouris SLCR, MCR is a Principal with Deloitte Consulting. Tim Flint is a Senior Manager with Deloitte Consulting. Maureen Welch is a Senior Manager with Deloitte Consulting. For more information on this topic, go to CoreNet Global’s Knowledge Center Online. Leveraging Technology to Increase Corporate Real Estate’s Value Proposition to the Enterprise http://www2.corenetglobal.org/ dotCMS/kcoAsset?assetInode=1993581 Technology Tools: Finding the Right System for Corporate Real Estate http://www2.corenetglobal.org/ dotCMS/kcoAsset?assetInode=274496 th e le ade r 53 september / october 2007 http://www2.corenetglobal.org/dotCMS/kcoAsset?assetInode=1993581 http://www2.corenetglobal.org/dotCMS/kcoAsset?assetInode=274496
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